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The Stationer Work Book Review.
The Stationer Work Book was sent to me as a sample for the purpose of reviewing here on The Finer Point. All the thoughts in this review are my own.
When Tessa emailed to ask if I would like to test run her self produced Work Book I gladly agreed. As a lover of paper I have had fleeting thoughts about creating a notebook myself and I admire Tessa a lot for doing this.
The Stationer Work Book is an A5 exercise (or composition) notebook. The cover has a thick paper stock in an off white and there is some beautiful risograph print on the front in lovely bold contrasting colours. The slight cross over of the colours on the ‘T’ may not be a design choice but I really like the look.
I have the ruled notebook which I often prefer when I am journaling. The Work Book is hand stitched with threads of very similar colours to the riso print on the font cover.
Finally the paper is recycled or FSC approved which is a nice touch.
First impressions.
Honestly I was surprised by the quality when I opened the package. The Work Book is sturdier than I had expected, the cover has a good weight (270gsm) to give it the feeling that it is in fact protecting the notebook and to give it a substantial feeling in hand.
The second surprising element was that the printed grid lines weren't too dark. Past experience has taught me on smaller productions of notebooks this part of the notebook can be overlooked, but it’s often the more important part of the design. You want the grid to guide, not impose and the Work Book has just the right grey tone for its lines.
Paper quality.
I have tried a few different pens and pencils out on this paper to see how the mix of recycled and FSC stock held up. You can see the recycled elements in some of the pages, but the paper it smooth to the touch which means it handles different writing materials well.
Fountain pens with varying thicknesses worked well. Even though the paper stock is 50% recycled material there was no feathering.
Personally the ruled lines are a little too close together, but this is purely due to my big loopy writing. I prefer a notebook with a little extra space.
Overall thoughts.
This is a very nice notebook. I believe this is the second batch that The Stationer has produced and the signs are really promising. In some ways I think it’s like the Mark + Fold exercise book. Similar in size, strong paper stock and not too overdone. Tessa has created a simple, yet very well thought through notebook.
Thank you to The Stationer for providing me with a sample of this notebook to review on the blog.